Apparatus and method for translating sentences containing punctuation marks

ABSTRACT

A translation system for translating a sentence of an original language into a sentence of a target language utilizes a computer which pre-treats insertion marks. These insertion marks can be quotation marks, colons, semicolons or parentheses found in the original language sentence. The computer also post-treats the insertion marks to provide an appropriate translation of the insertion marks into the target language sentence. These translations of the insertion marks are carried out without carrying the insertion marks throughout the whole translation process.

.Iadd.This application is a continuation of application Ser. No.07/961,575 filed on Oct. 15, 1992, now abandoned, which is a Reissue ofU.S. Pat. No. 4,964,030 issued Oct. 16, 1990. .Iaddend.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

1. Field of the Invention

The present invention relates to a language translation system whichperforms translation from one language (original language) to anotherlanguage (target language) using a computer. More particularly, thepresent invention relates to a language translation system which canautomatically translate a sentence even when it contains one or morecolons, semicolons, quotation marks, or parentheses, etc. which areherein generally called insert marks.

2. Description of the Prior Art

A general idea how the computer translation is carried out from onelanguage to another language will be explained. As shown in FIG. 1, asentence of the original or source language is processed so that aword-to-word dictionary look-up is obtained, and then the sourcelanguage is analyzed in the various steps, which are: morphologicalanalysis; syntactic analysis; semantic analysis; and context analysis,to obtain an intermediate language which does not belong to any existinglanguage, but can be understood only by the computer. The steps carriedout in each analysis will be further understood from Table 1 shownbelow.

                  TABLE 1                                                         ______________________________________                                        Analysis Steps                                                                             Analysis                                                         ______________________________________                                        Dictionary look-                                                                           Find a word in a dictionary and pro-                             up and morpho-                                                                             vide its translation as well as other                            logical analysis                                                                           word information, such as verb, noun,                                         adverb, adjective, plural, singular,                                          tense, person, etc, according to the                                          stored grammar text.                                             Syntactic    Find a relationship between the words,                           analysis     clauses and/or phrases to determine                                           one or more possible sentence con-                                            structions, each analyzed in a form                                           of a tree structure.                                             Semantic analysis                                                                          Select one sentence construction which                                        is most appropriate from the viewpoint                                        of the meaning.                                                  Context analysis                                                                           Understanding the theme of the sen-                                           tence and to clarify the vague                                                expressions.                                                     ______________________________________                                    

After the intermediate language is obtained, the computer forms andgenerates a sentence in the target language through the steps of:context generation; semantic generation; syntactic generation; andmorphological generation, which are similar to the above describedanalysis.

The above described method of the computer translation is called a pivotmethod in which the procedure follows the steps formulated by solid linearrows shown in FIG. 1 to obtain the intermediate language and then tofinally obtaining the target language.

Another method is called a transfer method in which the procedure takesa short cut step formulated by one of chain line arrows to complete thetranslation without obtaining the intermediate language.

There have been proposed a number of translation apparatuses which cantranslate, through either the pivot method or transfer method, anoriginal language, sentence by sentence, to a target language, and thetranslated result will be displayed on a screen.

A problem in the prior art translation apparatuses is that when thesentence of the original language contains one or more inserted markssuch as colons, semicolons, quotation marks, or parentheses, thetranslation procedure becomes very difficult and complicated.

For example, when the original language sentence contains a colon orsemicolon, the translation machine automatically and uniformlytranslates each inserted colon or semicolon to a most plausibletranslation in the target language. In some cases, the sentences withthe colon or semicolon are translated correctly, but in other cases, thetranslated sentences are meaningless. In such a case, the operatormanually provides proper translations or marks in the target language,thereby reducing the reliability of the translation system.

Another example is when the original language sentence containsparentheses. In this case, the operator usually deletes the parenthesestogether with the contents therein, so that the machine can translatethe sentence without the parentheses and the contents therein. Then, theoperator manually translates the contents within the parentheses andinserts the translated result in the machine translated sentencetogether with the parentheses. Therefore, it is very difficult to obtaina properly translated sentence having parentheses and the contentsthereof inserted in the right place.

A further example is when the original language sentence containsquotation marks. In this case, each quotation mark is rendered as a wordin the translation procedure. However, since the word order can changebetween the original and the target languages, the grammar for insertingthe quotation marks can be very difficult.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

The present invention has been developed to substantially solve theabove described disadvantages and has for its essential objective toprovide an improved translation system which can automatically translatethe original language sentence into the target language sentence evenwhen the original language sentence contains one or more inserted marks.

In accomplishing these and other, objectives, a translation system fortranslating a sentence of an original language into a sentence of atarget language includes a computer which has subroutines forpre-treating an insertion mark which is one of quotation mark, colon,semicolon or parenthesis used in the original language sentence, andsubroutines for post-treating the insertion mark to provide anappropriate translation of the insertion mark into the target languagesentence.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

These and other objectives and features of the present invention willbecome apparent from the following description taken in conjunction witha preferred embodiment thereof with reference to the accompanyingdrawings, throughout which like parts are designated by like referencenumerals, and in which:

FIG. 1 is a diagrammatic view showing the processes for translating fromone language to another language;

FIG. 2 is a block diagram of a translation apparatus according to apreferred embodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 3 is a block diagram showing a detail of the translation moduleshown in FIG. 2;

FIG. 4 is a block diagram showing the translation processes employed inthe embodiment of the present invention;

FIGS. 5a to 5e, are diagrammatic views showing the data to be stored inthe buffers shown in FIG. 3;

FIG. 6 is a main flow chart showing the operation of the languagetranslation according to the present invention;

FIG. 7 is a flow chart showing the colon/semicolon pre-treatmentsubroutine and the colon/semicolon post-treatment subroutine shown inFIG. 6;

FIGS. 8a, 8b and 8c are diagrams showing the data to be stored in thebuffer;

FIGS. 9a, 9b and 9c are diagrams showing the tree structure data storedin the buffer;

FIG. 10 is a schematic view showing the display of the translationresults of the sentences containing a semicolon;

FIG. 11 is a flow chart showing the quotation mark pre-treatmentsubroutine shown in FIG. 6;

FIG. 12 is a flow chart showing the generation subroutine shown in FIG.6;

FIG. 13 is a flow chart showing the phrase generation subroutine shownin FIG. 12;

FIG. 14 is a diagrammatic view showing an example of an inputtedsentence with quotation maxks;

FIG. 15 is a diagram showing a tree structure data stored in the buffer;

FIGS. 16, 17 and 18 are schematic views showing the display of thetranslation results of the sentences containing quotation, marks;

FIG. 19 is a flow chart showing the dictionary lookup subroutine shownin FIG. 6; and

FIG. 20 is a diagram showing the data to be stored in the buffer.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENT

Referring to FIG. 2, a block diagram of a language translation apparatusaccording to a preferred embodiment of the present invention is shown,which performs translation from one language-(original language), suchas English, to another language (target language), such as Japanese,using a computer. The translation apparatus comprises a centralprocessing unit (CPU) 1 for carrying out the translation, a main memory2 for storing programs to be used in CPU 1, a display 3 having acathode-ray tube (CRT) for displaying the necessary information requiredfor the translation, a keyboard 4 for inputting necessary informationrequired for the translation process, a translation module 5 for storingsuch information or the like, and a table 6 for storing dictionary,grammar and conversion rules to be used during the conversion betweentree structures. It is to be noted that an optical character reader(OCR) may be used as an input means for inputting the original sentencesto be translated.

According to the embodiment disclosed herein, the translation is carriedout using the transfer method, as explained above in connection withFIG. 1, with the analysis done as far as the syntactic analysis.However, it is possible to use the pivot method or the transfer methodwith the analysis done up to different levels.

Referring to FIG. 3, a hardware structure of the translation module 5 isshown, which comprises five buffers B1, B2, B3, B4 and B5, a CPU and aprogram memory. The five buffers are provided for storing the analysisresults of the different levels.

Referring to FIG. 4, a flowchart of the translation module 5 is shownwhich comprises: a dictionary lookup process 51 for obtaininginformation for each word using a dictionary stored in the memory uponreceipt of the original language (English) sentence; a syntacticanalysis process 52 for analyzing the sentence in a tree structure; asemantic analysis process 53 for analyzing the meaning of the sentence;and a sentence generation process 54 for generating a sentence into thetarget language (Japanese).

It is now assumed that an English sentence "This is a pen" is inputtedto the apparatus. Buffers B1 and B2 are used for the dictionary look-upprocess 51. In buffer B1, the sentence is separated into words and thewords are sequentially stored in different areas, as shown in FIG. 5a.Then, in buffer B2, each original word is provided with various wordinformation utilizing a dictionary and grammar text stored in theapparatus. An example of the data stored in buffer B2 is shown in FIG.5b.

Although the word "this" can be either an adjective, a pronoun, or anadverb, it is determined as a pronoun in the syntactic analysis process52. Thus, buffer B3, which is used for process 52, stores the sentencein association with a tree construction analysis. To obtain the treestructure of FIG. 5c, an analysis shown in Table 2 below is carried outwith the necessary information derived from table 6 (FIG. 3), whichcarries words and the translation and grammatical information.

                  TABLE 2                                                         ______________________________________                                        UNIT        ELEMENTS DEFINING THE UNIT                                        ______________________________________                                        Sentence    Subject and Predicate                                             Subject     Noun phrase                                                       Predicate   Verb and Noun phrase                                              Noun phrase Pronoun                                                           Noun phrase Article and Noun                                                  ______________________________________                                    

By the above table, each unit can be analyzed elements. For example, asentence can be analyzed according to a subject and a predicate.

Then, in semantic analysis process 53, analysis is carried out inaccordance with a conversion from the tree structure based on theEnglish language to the tree structure based on the Japanese language toobtain a new tree structure, as shown in FIG. 5d, which is stored inbuffer B4.

Thereafter, in the sentence generation process 54, postpositional wordseach functioning as an auxiliary to a main word, according to theJapanese grammar, are added to complete the translation into Japanese.The translation as completed is stored in buffer B5 as shown in FIG. 5e,and is outputted from translation module 5.

Referring to FIG. 6, the language translation system of the presentinvention is programmed to follow: a quotation mark pre-treatmentsubroutine I; a colon/semicolon pre-treatment subroutine II; adictionary look-up subroutine III; a colon/semicolon post-treatmentsubroutine IV; a syntactic analysis subroutine; a transfer subroutine;and a generation subroutine V, which are carried out in translationmodule 5.

The colons and semicolons are pre-treated and post-treated insubroutines II and IV, respectively, which will be described in detailin connection with FIGS. 7-10. The quotation marks are pre-treated andpost-treated in subroutines I and V, respectively, which will bedescribed in detail in connection with FIGS. 11-18. The parentheses arepre-treated and post-treated in subroutines III and V, respectively,which will be described in detail in connection with FIGS. 19, 13 and20.

Colons and Semicolons

Referring to FIG. 7, a flow chart of subroutines II and IV for the colonand semicolon pre-treatment and post-treatment is shown. The colon andsemicolon pre-treatment subroutine II includes a step II-1 at which itis detected whether or not the input sentence ends with a colon orsemicolon. If the answer is YES, the program goes to step II-2 at whicha period is added at the end of the sentence. If the answer is NO, theprogram goes to the dictionary look-up subroutine.

Three different examples are given below.

(A) This chapter explains;

(B) This chapter explains these;

(C) This chapter explains, these; the next chapter explains those.

In the case where the sentence (A) or (B) is inputted, a period is addedat the end of the sentence, such as shown below.

(A) This chapter explains;.

Then, in the dictionary look-up subroutine III, the words in thesentence (A) are analyzed and the result is stored in the buffer, suchas shown in FIG. 8a. Similarly, the sentences (B) and (C) are analyzedand the results are stored in the buffer, such as shown in FIGS. 8b and8c, respectively. As apparent from FIGS. 8a, 8b and 8c, the semicolon isidentified as one word and is analyzed either as a punctuation mark,pronoun or conjunction. The same can be said of the colon.

The colon and semicolon post-treatment subroutine IV includes a stepIV-1 at which it is detected whether or not the input sentence containsa colon or semicolon either within the body of the sentence or at theend of the sentence. In the cases of the above three examples, theresult will be YES, so that the program goes to step IV-2, at which itis detected whether or not the colon or semicolon is located immediatelybefore the period. If YES, such as in the case of examples (A) and (B),the program goes to step IV-3 at which the "conjunction" is deleted fromthe row defining the semicolon, as shown by parentheses in FIGS. 8a and8b. Thus, the colon or semicolon inserted immediately before the periodis defined as a punctuation mark or pronoun. On the contrary, if theanswer is NO, meaning that the colon or semicolon is locatedintermediately within the body of the sentence, such as in the case ofexample (C), the program goes to step IV-4 at which the "punctuation"and "pronoun" are deleted from the row defining the semicolon, as shownby parentheses in FIG. 8c. Thus, the colon or semicolon provided withinthe body of the sentence is defined as a conjunction.

Then, in the subroutine for the syntactic analysis, a tree structure isobtained, such as shown in FIGS. 9a, 9b and 9c for the above given threeexamples, respectively. Under this embodiment, instead of Table 2, theanalysis for obtaining the tree structure is carried out using a Table2' as shown below.

                  TABLE 2                                                         ______________________________________                                        UNIT        ELEMENTS DEFINING THE UNIT                                        ______________________________________                                        Sentence    Declarative Sentence + Punctuation Mark                           Declarative Noun phrase + Verb phrase                                         Sentence                                                                      Noun phrase Pronoun                                                           Noun phrase Demonstrative Adjective + Noun                                    Noun phrase Demonstrative Adjective + Adjective +                                         Noun                                                              Verb phrase Verb + Noun phrase                                                Declarative Declarative Sentence + conjunction +                              Sentence    Declarative Sentence                                              ______________________________________                                    

By the above table, each unit can be analyzed in elements. For example,a sentence can be analyzed according to a declarative sentence and apunctuation mark, as shown in FIGS. 9a, 9b and 9c.

In the case of example sentence (A), the semicolon is provided after atransitive verb "explain" which takes an object, as identified in thedictionary look-up subroutine, and, therefore, the semicolon isconsidered to be the object of the transitive verb "explain" and isfinally analyzed as a pronoun, as shown in FIG. 9a. If it is so definedin the dictionary that the semicolon is used as a pronoun means, inJapanese, "" (read as "ika", meaning "follow"), the example sentence (A)will be translated into Japanese as shown in FIG. 10, row 1, reading aJapanese equivalent of "This chapter explains as follows."

In the case of example sentence (B), since the word "these" serves asthe object of the transitive verb "explain", the semicolon is finallyanalyzed as a punctuation mark, i.e., a period. The period added at theend of this sentence at step II-2 will not appear in the tree structure,because it is not necessary to provide more than one period at the endof a sentence. Therefore, the added period will not be used in thetranslation. The example sentence (B) will be translated into Japaneseas shown in FIG. 10, row 2, reading a Japanese equivalent of "Thischapter explains these."

In the case of example sentence (C), the semicolon is finally analyzedas a conjunction. Thus, the example sentence (C) is analyzed as acompound sentence separated at the semicolon, and it will be translatedinto Japanese as shown in FIG. 10, row 3, in which the Japanesetranslation says `This chapter explains these; the next chapter explainsthose.`

Quotation Marks

Referring to FIG. 11, a flow chart of the quotation mark pre-treatmentsubroutine I is shown. The quotation mark pre-treatment subroutineincludes a step I-1 at which a pointer for pointing a word to beprocessed is reset to zero, so as to move the pointer to the first word.Then, at step I-2, a begin quotation mark (") is searched for and, atstep I-3, it is detected whether or not the begin quotation mark isfound. If YES, the program goes to step I-4 to store a word position ofa word accompanying the detected begin quotation mark (") and a beginquotation mark itself. It is to be noted that the words of the inputsentence are provided with word position numbers in series starting fromzero, such as shown in FIG. 14. Then, at step I-5, an end quotation mark(") is searched for. When the end quotation mark is found, the programgoes to step I-6 and further to step I-7 to store the word position of aword accompanying the detected end quotation mark (") and an endquotation mark itself. Thereafter, steps I-2 through I-7 are repeated tofind all the quotation marks contained in the input sentence.

When a begin quotation mark is no longer found, the program goes fromstep I-3 to step I-9. Also, when an end quotation mark is no longerfound, the program goes from step I-6 to step I-8 at which the storedword position of the word with begin quotation mark is cleared, and theprogram further goes to step I-9. Therefore, the word positions of thewords provided with begin and end quotation marks are stored in pairs.At step I-9, the quotation marks at the stored word positions aredeleted.

By the above program, a mark similar to or the same as the quotationmark, such as a mark representing the inches, will not be detected andthus, will not be deleted.

It is now assumed that the input sentence is: I bought a car "with 1000dollars." In this case, each word is given a serial number starting fromzero, as shown in FIG. 14 (step I-1). Then, at step I-4, the wordposition number "4" is stored together with the begin quotation mark.Thereafter, at step I-7, the word position number "6" is stored togetherwith the quotation mark. Here, the reason for storing the word positionnumber "6" instead of "7" is such that, in the case where the sentenceends with a period, the position of a word before the period is storedfor expediency sake. Then, when the program goes to step I-3 for thesecond time, it jumps to step 1-9 at which the quotation marks providedat the words corresponding to the stored word positions are deleted.Therefore, after the quotation mark pre-treatment subroutine I, such asin the dictionary look-up subroutine III and in the syntactic analysissubroutine, the sentence with no quotation mark is treated. Thus, nospecial grammar rule is needed to analyze the sentence.

Referring to FIG. 12, a flow chart of the quotation mark post-treatmentsubroutine V is shown. In the quotation mark post-treatment subroutine,the program operates with one unit of a phrase at a time and is appliedin the order determined by the grammar rule. Thus, the phrases shown inthe second analyzed level in FIG. 15 are applied and treated in the flowchart of FIG. 12 sequentially in the following order: first, the nounphrase "I" which has the first word position of "0" and the last wordposition of "0" is applied; second, the prepositional phrase "with 1000dollars" which has the first word position of "4" and the last wordposition of "6" is applied; third, the noun phrase "a car" which has thefirst word position of "2" and the last word position of "3" is applied;fourth, the verb phrase "bought" which has the first word position of"1" and the last word position of "1" is applied; and fifth, thesentence end, which is the period, is applied.

At step V-1, the first and the last word positions of the applied phraseare compared with the stored word positions"4" and "6" as obtained inprevious steps I-4 and I-7, respectively, and when they match eachother, the program goes to step V-2 at which a flag is set. Then, atstep V-3, a begin quotation mark in the target language (for example, inJapanese, the begin quotation mark is expressed by ".left brkt-top.") isgenerated. Thereafter, at step V-4, the phrase detected at step V-1, inthis case the prepositional phrase, is generated into Japanese. Then, atstep V-5, since the flag is now set, the program goes to step V-6 atwhich an end quotation mark in the target language (for example, inJapanese, the end quotation mark is expressed by ".right brkt-bot.") isgenerated. Then, it is detected at step V-7 whether or not all thephrases are generated. If not, the program goes to step V-8 at which theflag is reset and repeats steps V-1 through V-7 to generate anotherphrase. When all the phrases are generated, the program completes thetranslation of the input sentence. The translated result will bedisplayed, such as in a manner shown in FIG. 16. FIGS. 17 and 18 showother examples of the translated results.

Parentheses

Referring to FIG. 19, a flow chart of the dictionary look-up subroutineIII, which includes the parentheses pre-treatment, is shown. Thedictionary look-up subroutine III includes a step III-1 at which apointer for pointing out a word to be processed is reset to zero, so asto move the pointer to the first word. Then, at step III-2, it isdetected whether or not the word is a begin parenthesis [(]. If it isnot the begin parenthesis, the program goes to step III-3 at which theword is looked up in the dictionary to find its translation and otherinformation such as its grammatical definition. The obtained informationis stored in a buffer. Then, at step III-5, the pointer is moved to thenext word and, at step III-6, it is detected whether or not all thewords are translated. If not, the program returns to step III-2.

At step III-2, if it is detected that the word is the begin parenthesis,the program goes to step III-7 at which the number of words within andincluding the begin and end parentheses is counted. For example, if theinput sentence is: I have a pen (I bought it yesterday)., the number ofwords within and including the begin and end parentheses is "6", asindicated in FIG. 20. The counted result is added to the number of wordsfor the word just before the begin parenthesis. Therefore, the contentsin the parentheses together- with the parentheses are defined asbelongings of a word immediately before the begin parenthesis. Thus,according to the above example, the counted result "6" is added to theword number "1" of the word "pen" just before the begin parenthesis andthe sum "7" is stored for the word number of the word "pen", as shown inFIG. 20. Thus, in the later subroutines, such as in the syntacticanalysis subroutine, the word "pen" is treated as a single nounconsisting of seven words. Then, at step III-8, the number of wordswithin and including the begin and end parentheses is counted and isstored. Thus, in the example, the word number "6" is stored for the wordnumber of the word "(". Thereafter, at step III-9, the contents of onebuffer are temporarily removed and cleared for use in translating thewords within the parentheses, as carried out in step III-10. Thetranslated result is stored in another buffer (step III-11), and thetemporarily removed data is returned back to the original buffer.Thereafter, at step III-5, the pointer is moved to the word next to theend parenthesis.

In this manner, the words within the parentheses are previouslytranslated. If it is not necessary to translate the words in theparentheses, steps III-9 through III-12 may be skipped.

Referring to FIG. 13, a detail flow chart of the phrase generation stepV-4 contained in FIG. 12 is shown. In this phrase generation subroutineV-4, the steps of the parentheses post-treatment are included.

At step V-4a, the translation of each word in the phrase is stored in abuffer. Then, at step V-4b, it is detected whether or not the next wordis the begin parenthesis [(]. If YES, the program goes to step V-4c atwhich the words within and including the parentheses, which are alreadytranslated in the target language, are stored in the translation buffer.Then, at step V-4d, it is detected whether or not all the words in thephrase are translated. If not, the program goes to step V-4e to shiftthe pointer to the next word. In the case where the pointer is pointingthe begin parenthesis [(], the next word which will be pointed by thepointer in step V-4e will be the word after the end parenthesis [(].This can be accomplished by increasing the counter of the pointer by theamount of the word number stored for the begin parenthesis, such asshown in FIG. 20.

As has been fully described above, according to the present invention,since the input sentence which contains inserted marks, such as colons,semicolons, quotation marks, or parentheses, etc., can be translatedautomatically without employing any sophisticated grammer or program,the translation can be done quickly and with less errors.

The embodiment herein described is designed to carry out the translationunder the transfer method with the analysis done as far as the syntacticanalysis. However, the program may also be so designed as to carry outthe translation under the pivot method or the transfer method with theanalysis done up to different levels.

Although the present invention has been fully described in connectionwith the preferred embodiment thereof with reference to the accompanyingdrawings, it is to be noted that various changes and modifications areapparent to those skilled in the art. Such changes and modifications areto be understood as included within the scope of the present inventionas defined by the appended claims unless they depart therefrom.

What is claimed is:
 1. A .[.translation.]. system for .[.translatinga.]. .Iadd.enabling translation of an input .Iaddend.sentence of anoriginal language into a sentence of a target language comprising:firstdetecting means for detecting either a colon or semicolon within theoriginal language sentence .Iadd.input into the translationsystem.Iaddend.; second detecting means for detecting a position of thedetected colon or semicolon in the original language sentence, saidposition being either at an end of the original language sentence orwithin the body of the original language sentence; and syntacticanalysis .[.mans.]. .Iadd.means .Iaddend.for defining the detected colonor semicolon located at the end of the original language sentence as apunctuation mark or a pronoun and for defining the detected colon orsemicolon located within the body of the original language sentence as aconjunction .Iadd., to enable subsequent translation of the inputsentence of an original language into the sentence of a targetlanguage.Iaddend..
 2. A .[.translation.]. system for .[.translating a.]..Iadd.enabling translation of an input .Iaddend.sentence of an originallanguage into a sentence of a target language comprising:first detectingmeans for detecting if a colon or semicolon is positioned at an end ofthe original language sentence .Iadd.input into the translationsystem.Iaddend.; adding means, in response to said first detectingmeans, for adding a period after said colon or semicolon when said firstdetecting means detects said position of said colon or semicolon is atthe end of the original language sentence to form a modified originallanguage sentence; second detecting means for detecting if a colon orsemicolon is positioned within the body of the original languagesentence; third detecting means for detecting if the detected colon orsemicolon is located immediately before the added period of saidmodified original language sentence or if the detected colon orsemicolon is located intermediately within the body of the originallanguage sentence; and syntactic analysis means for defining said colonor semicolon located immediately before the added period as apunctuation mark when the original language sentence has a transitiveverb and an object; said syntactic analysis means defining said colon orsemicolon located immediately before the added period of said modifiedoriginal language sentence as a pronoun when the original languagesentence has a transitive verb but no object; said syntactic analysismeans defining said colon or semicolon located intermediately within thebody of the original language sentence as a conjunction.Iadd., to enablesubsequent translation of the input sentence of an original languageinto a sentence of a target language.Iaddend..
 3. A translation systemfor translating .[.a.]. .Iadd.an input .Iaddend.sentence of an originallanguage into a sentence of a target language comprising:numbering meansfor .[.providing.]. .Iadd.assigning .Iaddend.a .[.serial number.]..Iadd.word .Iaddend.position .Iadd.number .Iaddend.to each word in thesentence of the original language .Iadd.input into the translationsystem.Iaddend.; detecting means for detecting a pair of .Iadd.first andsecond .Iaddend.quotation marks within the original language sentence;storing means for storing said .[.serial number positions.]. .Iadd.wordposition numbers .Iaddend.of the .Iadd.word immediately subsequent toand the word immediately preceding the .Iaddend.detected .Iadd.first andsecond .Iaddend.quotation marks.Iadd., respectively, as first and secondrespective positions.Iaddend.; deleting means for deleting the detectedquotation marks from the original language sentence to create a modifiedoriginal language sentence; translation means for translating saidmodified original language sentence into the target language sentence;and adding means for .[.adding.]. .Iadd.reinserting the first.Iaddend.quotation .[.marks into the.]. .Iadd.mark, prior totranslation, upon detecting a word position number of a word of a phraseto be .Iaddend.translated .[.target language sentence.]..Iadd.corresponding to the stored first position .Iaddend. .[.atpositions.]., .Iadd.and for reinserting the second quotation mark,subsequent to translation, upon detecting word position number of a wordof a phrase to be translated .Iaddend.corresponding to the stored.[.serial number positions.]. .Iadd.second position.Iaddend..
 4. Atranslation system for translating .[.a.]. .Iadd.an input.Iaddend.sentence of an original language into a sentence of a targetlanguage comprising:detecting means for detecting a begin parenthesisand an end parenthesis in the original language sentence .Iadd.inputinto the translation system.Iaddend.; .[.and.]. grouping means forgrouping contents within the parentheses together with the parenthesesand for designating the grouped contents as a single word .[.to becombined.]. .Iadd.and combining the grouped contents .Iaddend.with aword immediately positioned before said begin parenthesis.Iadd.; andtranslation means for translating, together, the combined group contentsand the word positioned immediately before the begin parenthesis intothe target language sentence.Iaddend..
 5. The translation system asclaimed in claim 4, further comprising:translating means for translatingthe contents in the parentheses into the target language.
 6. A methodfor .[.translating punctuation marks of.]. .Iadd.enabling translation of.Iaddend.an original language .Iadd.sentence .Iaddend.into a targetlanguage .[.utilizing.]. .Iadd.sentence in a translation systemincluding .Iaddend.a translation apparatus .[.a.]. .Iadd.and anelectronic memory, .Iaddend.comprising the steps of:(a) detecting aposition of a semicolon or colon in a sentence of the original language.Iadd.input into the translation system.Iaddend.; (b) analyzing.Iadd.and storing in the electronic memory of the translation system,.Iaddend.the position of the semicolon or colon detected in said step(a); (c) defining the semicolon or colon as a punctuation mark when theposition of the semicolon or colon is detected to be at an end of thesentence of the original language in said step (a) and the sentence ofthe original language has a transitive verb and an object; (d) definingthe semicolon or colon as a pronoun when the position of the semicolonor colon is detected to be at an end of the sentence of the originallanguage in said step (a) and the sentence of the original language hasa transitive verb but no object; and (e) defining the semicolon or colonas a conjunction when the position of the semicolon or colon is detectedto be intermediately within the sentence of the original language.Iadd.,to enable subsequent translation of the input original language sentenceinto a target language sentence in the translation apparatus.Iaddend..7. The method as claimed in claim 6 further comprising the steps of:(f)adding a period to the end of the sentence of the original language whenthe position of the semicolon or colon is detected to be at the end ofthe sentence of the original language in said step (a).
 8. A method fortranslating punctution marks of an original language into a targetlanguage .Iadd.in a translation system including a translation apparatusand an electronic memory, .Iaddend.comprising the steps of:(a) assigninga .[.serial number.]. .Iadd.word .Iaddend.position .Iadd.number.Iaddend.to each word in a sentence of the original language .Iadd.inputinto the translation system.Iaddend.; (b) detecting a pair of.Iadd.first and second .Iaddend.quotation marks within the sentence ofthe original language; (c) storing the .[.serial number positionscorresonding to the.]. .Iadd.word position numbers of the wordimmediately subsequent to and the word immediately preceding the firstand second .Iaddend.quotation marks.Iadd., respectively,.Iaddend.detected in said step (b).Iadd., in the electronic memory ofthe translation system.Iaddend.; (d) deleting the detected .Iadd.firstand second .Iaddend.quotation marks from the sentence of the originallanguage to create a modified sentence; (e) translating the modifiedsentence of said step (d) .Iadd.into a target language sentence in thetranslation apparatus; .Iaddend.and (f) .[.adding the.]..Iadd.reinserting the first .Iaddend.quotation .[.marks into the.]..Iadd.mark, prior to translation, upon detecting a word position numberof a word of a phrase to be translated corresponding to the stored firstposition, and for reinserting the second quotation mark, subsequent totranslation, upon detecting a word position number of a word of a phraseto be .Iaddend.translated .[.sentence of said step (e) at positions.].corresponding to the stored .[.serial number positions.]. .Iadd.secondposition.Iaddend..
 9. A method for translating .[.punctuation marksof.]. an original language .Iadd.sentence .Iaddend.into a targetlanguage .Iadd.sentence in a translation system including a translationapparatus.Iaddend., comprising the steps of:(a) detecting a beginparenthesis and an end parenthesis in a sentence of the originallanguage .Iadd.input into the translation system.Iaddend.; (b) groupingcontents within the parentheses together with the parentheses; (c)designating the grouped contents of said step (b) as a single word;.[.and.]. (d) combining the designated word of said step (c) with a wordimmediately positioned before the begin parenthesis.[...]. .Iadd., and(e) translating, together, the combined words of step (d) into thetarget language, in a translation apparatus.Iaddend..
 10. The method asclaimed in claim 9 further comprising the steps of:(e) separatelytranslating the grouped contents of the parentheses into the targetlanguage. .Iadd.
 11. A system for enabling translation of an inputsentence of an original language into a sentence of a target languagecomprising:first detecting means for detecting an insertion mark withinthe original language sentence input into the translation system; seconddetecting means for detecting a position and type of the detectedinsertion mark in the original language sentence, said position beingeither at an end of the original language sentence or within the body ofthe original language sentence; and means for defining the detectedinsertion mark located within the body of the original language sentenceas a conjunction, a punctuation mark, or a pronoun based upon thedetected position and detected type of the detected insertion mark, toenable subsequent translation of the original language sentence into thetarget language sentence. .Iaddend..Iadd.12. A system for enablingtranslation of an input sentence of an original language into a sentenceof a target language comprising: first detecting means for detecting ifinsertion mark is positioned at an end of the original language sentenceinput into the translation system; adding means, in response to saidfirst detecting means, for adding a period after said insertion markwhen said first detecting means detects said position of said insertionmark is at the end of the original language sentence to form a modifiedoriginal language sentence; second detecting means for detecting if aninsertion mark is positioned within the body of the original languagesentence; third detecting means for detecting if the detected insertionmark is located immediately before the added period of said modifiedoriginal language sentence or if the detected insertion mark is locatedintermediately within the body of the original language sentence; andmeans for defining said insertion mark, in response to the thirddetecting means detecting the insertion mark as being locatedintermediately within the body of the original language sentence, as aconjunction, to enable subsequent translation of the original languagesentence into the target language sentence. .Iaddend..Iadd.13. Thesystem as claimed in claim 12, wherein said means for defining theinsertion mark is further for defining the detected insertion mark, inresponse to the first detecting means detecting the insertion mark asbeing located at the end of the original language sentence, as apunctuation mark or a pronoun. .Iaddend..Iadd.14. The system as claimedin claim 12, wherein said means for defining further defines saidinsertion mark, in response to the third detecting means detecting theinsertion mark as being located immediately before the added period ofsaid modified original language sentence, as a punctuation mark when theoriginal language sentence has a transitive verb and an object..Iaddend..Iadd.15. The system as claimed in claim 12 wherein said meansfor defining further defines said insertion mark, in response to thethird detecting means detecting the insertion mark as being locatedimmediately before the added period of said modified original languagesentence, as a pronoun when the original language sentence has atransitive verb but no object. .Iaddend..Iadd.16. A translation systemfor translating an input sentence of an original language into asentence of a target language comprising:numbering means for assigning aword position number to each word in the sentence of the originallanguage input into the translation system; detecting means fordetecting a pair of first and second like insertion marks within theoriginal language sentence; storing means for storing said word positionnumbers of the first and second paired like insertion marks,respectively, as first and second respective positions; deleting meansfor deleting the detected first and second paired like insertion marksfrom the input original language sentence to create a modified originallanguage sentence; translation means for translating said modifiedoriginal language sentence into the target language sentence; and addingmeans for reinserting the first insertion mark, prior to translation,upon detecting a word position number of a word of a phrase to betranslated corresponding to the stored first position, and forreinserting the second like insertion mark, subsequent to translation,upon detecting a word position number of a word of a phrase to betranslated corresponding to the stored second position. .Iaddend..Iadd.A translation system for translating an input sentence of an originallanguage into a sentence of a target language comprising:detecting meansfor detecting a begin insertion mark and an end insertion mark, ofpaired like insertion marks, in the input original language sentence;grouping means for grouping contents within the paired like insertionmarks together with the paired insertion marks, for designating thegrouped contents as a single word and for combining the grouped contentswith a word immediately positioned before the begin insertion mark; andtranslation means for translating, together, the combined group contentsand word immediately positioned before the begin insertion mark of theoriginal input sentence, into the translated sentence..Iaddend..Iadd.18. The translation system as claimed in claim 17,further comprising:translating means for translating the contents inbetween the paired like insertion marks into the target language..Iaddend..Iadd.19. A method for enabling translation of an inputoriginal language sentence into a target language sentence in a systemincluding a translation apparatus and an electronic memory, comprisingthe steps of:(a) detecting a position of an insertion mark in a sentenceof the original language input into the translation system; (b)analyzing and storing in the electronic memory of the translationsystem, the position of the insertion mark detected in said step (a);and (c) defining the insertion mark as a conjunction when the positionof the insertion mark is detected to be intermediately within thesentence of the original language, to enable subsequent translation ofthe input sentence of the original language into the sentence of thetarget language in the translation apparatus. .Iaddend..Iadd.20. Themethod as claimed in claim 19 further comprising the step of:(d)defining the insertion mark as a punctuation mark when the position ofthe insertion mark is detected to be at an end of the sentence of theoriginal language in said step (a) and the sentence of the originallanguage has a transitive verb and an object. .Iaddend..Iadd.21. Themethod as claimed in claim 19 further comprising the step of:(d)defining the detected insertion mark located at the end of the originallanguage sentence as a punctuation mark or a pronoun. .Iaddend..Iadd.22.The method as claimed in claim 19 further comprising the step of: (d)adding a period to the end of the sentence of the original language whenthe position of the insertion mark is detected to be at the end of thesentence of the original language in said step (a). .Iaddend..Iadd.23.The method as claimed in claim 19 further comprising the step of: (d)defining the insertion mark as a pronoun when the position of theinsertion mark is detected to be at an end of the sentence of theoriginal language in said step (a) and the sentence of the originallanguage has a transitive verb but no object. .Iaddend..Iadd.24. Amethod for translating an input original language sentence into a targetlanguage sentence in a translation system including a translationapparatus and an electronic memory, comprising the steps of:(a)assigning a word position number to each word in a sentence of theoriginal language input into the translation system; (b) detecting apair of first and second like insertion marks within the sentence of theoriginal language; (c) storing the word position numbers of the wordimmediately subsequent to and the word immediately preceding the pairedfirst and second like insertion marks, respectively, as stored first andsecond respective positions in the electronic memory of the translationsystem; (d) deleting the detected paired first and second like insertionmarks from the sentence of the original language to create a modifiedsentence; (e) translating the modified sentence of said step (d) into atarget language sentence in the translation apparatus; and (f)reinserting the first paired like insertion mark, prior to translation,upon detecting a word position number of a word of a phrase to betranslated corresponding to the stored first position, and forreinserting the second paired like insertion mark, subsequent totranslation, upon detecting a word position number of a word of a phraseto be translated corresponding to the stored second position..Iaddend..Iadd.25. A method for enabling translation of an inputoriginal language sentence into a target language sentence in a system,including a translation apparatus, comprising the steps of:(a) detectinga first insertion mark of a pair of like insertion marks and a lastinsertion mark of the pair of like insertion marks in a sentence of theoriginal language input into the translation system; (b) groupingcontents within the paired like insertion marks together with the pairedlike insertion marks; (c) designating the grouped contents of said step(b) as a single word; (d) combining the designated single word of saidstep (c) with a word immediately positioned before the first insertionmark of the pair of like insertion marks; and (e) translating, together,the combined words of step (d) into the target language in thetranslation apparatus. .Iaddend..Iadd.26. The method as claimed in claim25 further comprising the step of: (f) separately translating thegrouped contents of the paired like insertion marks of step (b) into thetarget language. .Iaddend..Iadd.27. The system of claim 11, wherein thesecond detecting means detects types of insertion marks, said typesincluding colons and semicolons. .Iaddend..Iadd.28. The system of claim12, wherein said insertion marks include colons and semicolons..Iaddend..Iadd.29. The translation system of claim 16 wherein thedetecting means is for detecting a pair of like insertion marks, saidpair of like insertion marks including a pair of quotation marks..Iaddend..Iadd.30. The system of claim 17, wherein the detecting meansdetects a begin insertion and insertion mark, of paired like insertionmarks, said begin insertion mark including a first parenthesis of a pairof parentheses add said end insertion mark including a secondparenthesis of a pair of parentheses. .Iaddend..Iadd.31. The method ofclaim 19, wherein a position of an insertion mark is detected in step(a), the insertion marks including colons and semicolons..Iaddend..Iadd.32. The method of claim 24, wherein a pair of likeinsertion marks are detected in step (b), the pair of like insertionmarks including a pair of quotation marks. .Iaddend..Iadd.33. The methodof claim 25, wherein a first insertion mark of a pair of like insertionmarks, and a last insertion mark of a pair of like insertion marks isdetected in step (a), the pair of like insertion marks including a pairof parentheses. .Iaddend.